Environment news

• Vertical Axis Wind Turbines Can Offer Cheaper Electricity for Urban and Suburban Areas

  04-08-2017 23:06 via feedproxy.google.com
  According to a prediction made by the U.S. Department of Energy, wind energy could provide 20 percent of electricity in the U.S. by the year 2030. This has motivated researchers from the University of Utah’s Department of Mechanical Engineering to investigate the performance capabilities and financial benefits of vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs) in urban and suburban areas. A VAWT is a wind turbine design where the generator is vertically oriented in the tower, rather than sitting
  
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• Simultaneous Design and Nanomanufacturing Speeds Up Fabrication

  04-08-2017 22:59 via feedproxy.google.com
  Design and nanomanufacturing have collided inside of a Northwestern University laboratory.An interdisciplinary team of researchers has used mathematics and machine learning to design an optimal material for light management in solar cells, then fabricated the nanostructured surfaces simultaneously with a new nanomanufacturing technique.
  
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• Standard Model of the Universe Withstands Most Precise Test by Dark Energy Survey

  04-08-2017 22:51 via feedproxy.google.com
  Astrophysicists have a fairly accurate understanding of how the universe ages: That’s the conclusion of new results from the Dark Energy Survey (DES), a large international science collaboration, including researchers from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, that put models of cosmic structure formation and evolution to the most precise test yet.The survey’s researchers analyzed light from 26 million galaxies to study how structures in the univ
  
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• Scientists reveal source of human heartbeat in 3D

  04-08-2017 22:49 via feedproxy.google.com
  A pioneering new study is set to help surgeons repair hearts without damaging precious tissue.A team of scientists from Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU), The University of Manchester, Aarhus University and Newcastle University, have developed a way of producing 3D data to show the cardiac conduction system - the special cells that enable our hearts to beat – in unprecedented detail. The findings were published in Scientific Reports.
  
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• Primordial Black Holes May Have Helped to Forge Heavy Elements

  04-08-2017 22:33 via feedproxy.google.com
  Astronomers like to say we are the byproducts of stars, stellar furnaces that long ago fused hydrogen and helium into the elements needed for life through the process of stellar nucleosynthesis.As the late Carl Sagan once put it: “The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of star stuff.”But what about the heavier elements in the periodic chart, elements such as gol
  
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• Blood from MERS Virus Survivors May Help Target Treatments

  04-08-2017 22:32 via feedproxy.google.com
  Since causing major outbreaks in Saudi Arabia in 2014, and in Korea a year later, the virus that causes Middle East Respiratory Syndrome is laying low. But by no means has it disappeared: A recent cluster of 34 cases cropped up in July in Riyadh City, Saudi Arabia’s capital. The dromedary camels who harbored the virus for more than 20 years aren’t going anywhere, and neither is MERS.
  
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• Alaska's North Slope Snow-Free Season is Lengthening

  04-08-2017 22:26 via feedproxy.google.com
  On the North Slope of Alaska, snow is melting earlier in the spring and the snow-in date is happening later in the fall, according to a new study by CIRES and NOAA researchers. Atmospheric dynamics and sea ice conditions are behind this lengthening of the snow-free season, the scientists found, and the consequences are far reaching—including birds laying eggs sooner and iced-over rivers flowing earlier.“The timing of snowmelt and length of the snow-free season significantly impacts w
  
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• Tropical Depression 11E ''Born'' With Wind Shear on Satellite Imagery

  04-08-2017 22:06 via feedproxy.google.com
  The eleventh tropical depression of the Eastern Pacific Ocean hurricane season came together on August 4 even though it was being affected by vertical wind shear.NOAA's GOES-West satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Depression 11E on August 4, 2017 at 10:45 a.m. EDT (1445 UTC) in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. The image showed that the bulk of clouds appeared on the western side of the storm, which indicates wind shear was likely affecting the storm. 
  
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• Where there's fire, there's smoke – and social media

  04-08-2017 22:03 via feedproxy.google.com
  When people see smoke on the horizon, what do they do? Besides (hopefully) calling fire authorities, they post to social media, of course.The fact that people reliably flock to social media to discuss smoke and fire was the inspiration for a new study by Colorado State University atmospheric scientists. Driven to innovate ways to improve the air we breathe, the scientists have shown that social media, Facebook in this case, could prove a powerful tool.
  
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• Carbon Conversion

  04-08-2017 21:53 via feedproxy.google.com
  Chemists have figured out a new, more efficient way to create carbon-based fuels from carbon dioxide (CO2). In chemical reactions performed in the lab, a Caltech team has identified a new additive that helps selectively convert CO2 into fuels containing multiple carbon atoms—a step toward ultimately making renewable liquid fuels that are not derived from coal or oil."The results were quite shocking," says Jonas Peters, Bren Professor of Chemistry at Caltech and director of the&nb
  
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• NASA Spies Wind Shear Still Affecting Tropical Storm Nalgae

  04-08-2017 21:52 via feedproxy.google.com
  Tropical Storm Nalgae can’t seem to get a break from vertical wind shear. The storm has been dealing with wind shear since it formed and NASA’s Terra satellite observed that was still the case on August 4.
  
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• Dramatic changes needed in farming practices to keep pace with climate change

  04-08-2017 21:24 via feedproxy.google.com
  Major changes in agricultural practices will be required to offset increases in nutrient losses due to climate change, according to research published by a Lancaster University-led team.
  
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• Seasonal Effects: "Winter foals" are smaller than foals born in summer

  04-08-2017 20:12 via feedproxy.google.com
  Seasonal and diurnal rhythms determine the life cycle of many animal species. In equids this is not only true for wild species such as the Przewalski but season-dependent metabolic changes also exist in domesticated horses. Horses can reduce their metabolic activity during the cold season and thus reduce heat loss. The effects of such seasonal changes on pregnancy and foetal development, however, have not been investigated so far. Researchers from Vetmeduni Vienna could now demonstrate that foal
  
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• NASA Sees High Clouds Fill Typhoon Noru's Eye

  04-08-2017 20:08 via feedproxy.google.com
  NASA's Terra satellite passed over Typhoon Noru early on August 3 and saw that high clouds had moved over the eye.
  
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• Wildlife royalties – a future for conservation?

  04-08-2017 19:46 via feedproxy.google.com
  Writing in the journal Animals, they muse on whether organisations that profit in some way from wildlife imagery and popularity, could establish a corporate responsibility to contribute a portion of this income to the conservation of the animals represented.
  
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• Temperatures Rising

  04-08-2017 19:42 via feedproxy.google.com
  The Paris Climate Agreement of 2016, which saw 195 nations come together in the shared goal of ameliorating climate change, set forth an ambitious goal of limiting global temperature rise to less than 2 degrees Celsius. Since then, many have wondered, is that even scientifically possible? Unfortunately, the odds aren’t looking good.
  
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• With political will, we could easily solve our transport problems | Letters

  04-08-2017 19:22 via theguardian.com
  Readers share their thoughts on electricity generation, cars, cycling, trains and garden citiesGeorge Monbiot makes some useful points in his article bemoaning the influence of the lobbying power of the motor industry (We must break the car’s chokehold on Britain, 2 August). He proposes a modal transport shift to more coach travel and investment in nuclear power plants to power our electric cars. He ignores completely, as usual, the solar option with smaller electric cars and electric bike
  
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• The man who makes animals 'fly'

  04-08-2017 18:05 via bbc.co.uk
  This Turkish animal lover was so affected by injured animals, he set out to help them.
  
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• Alligator found at Somerset lake

  04-08-2017 18:04 via bbc.co.uk
  A Bristol Water engineer spotted an alligator roaming around the Chew Valley Lake site.
  
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• Jack Jeffery obituary

  04-08-2017 16:18 via theguardian.com
  
  My father, Jack Jeffery, who has died aged 87, was a chemist and water purity expert who came from a family strongly rooted in pacifism, secularism and socialism. He taught his children the value of strong opinions and vigorous debate.The only child of Philip Jeffery, a plasterer and school caretaker, and his wife, Elsie (nee Carr), he was born and brought up in Clough Dene, a hamlet in Co Durham. Jack shared his father’s passions for literature and cricket. He played the piano from t
  
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• Industrial meat production is killing our seas. It's time to change our diets

  04-08-2017 16:00 via theguardian.com
  America’s addiction to cheap meat, fed on corn and soy in vast indoor factories, comes at a high cost to our own health and that of the planetCallum Roberts is professor of marine conservation, at the University of York, UKEvery spring, as the snows thaw, water rushes down the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, spreading life, then death into the Gulf of Mexico. The floodwaters are laden with fertilisers washed from fields and factory farms. As spring turns to summer, excessive nutrients fir
  
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• Melting glaciers in Swiss Alps could reveal hundreds of mummified corpses

  04-08-2017 15:58 via theguardian.com
  Frozen bodies of couple who vanished 75 years ago among those uncovered recently as global warming forces ice to retreatSwiss police say hundreds of bodies of mountaineers who have gone missing in the Alps in the past century could emerge in coming years as global warming forces the country’s glaciers to retreat.Alpine authorities have registered a significant increase in the number of human remains discovered last month, with the body of a man missing for 30 years the most recent to be un
  
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• Fewer cars not cleaner ones key to tackling air quality

  04-08-2017 15:48 via bbc.co.uk
  Plans to promote electric vehicles in the UK are not enough tackle air pollution says leading adviser.
  
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• Week in wildlife: amorous ladybirds and an adopted hawk - in pictures

  04-08-2017 15:04 via theguardian.com
  An unlucky zebra and the UK’s first pair of breeding night herons are also among our pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...
  
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• Extreme heat warnings issued in Europe as temperatures pass 40C

  04-08-2017 15:00 via theguardian.com
  Authorities in 11 countries warn residents and tourists to take precautions amid region’s most intense heatwave since 2003Eleven southern and central European countries have issued extreme heat warnings amid the region’s most sustained heatwave since 2003, with residents and tourists told to take precautions and scientists warning things are likely to get worse.Authorities in countries including Italy, Switzerland, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Croatia and Serbia are on red alert, accord
  
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• London should lead in showing electric cars will not tackle air pollution

  04-08-2017 13:10 via theguardian.com
  The government’s new strategy does not go far enough in recognising fewer vehicles, not just cleaner ones, are the answer With more and more of the world’s population living in cities, we need to get urban transport right. That means making sure that people and goods can move around easily and cheaply. It also means ensuring that city transport systems don’t damage people’s health, as diesel and to a lesser extent petrol are currently doing in London and other UK cities.C
  
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• Electric cars are not the answer to air pollution, says top UK adviser

  04-08-2017 13:10 via theguardian.com
  Prof Frank Kelly says fewer not cleaner vehicles are needed, plus more cycling and walking and better transit systems Cars must be driven out of cities to tackle the UK’s air pollution crisis, not just replaced with electric vehicles, according to the UK government’s top adviser.Prof Frank Kelly said that while electric vehicles emit no exhaust fumes, they still produce large amounts of tiny pollution particles from brake and tyre dust, for which the government already accepts there
  
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• Are we in for a fishy deal? – Brexit Means podcast

  04-08-2017 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Jon Henley and his team of experts dive into the murky waters of the UK fishing industry, one of the loudest voices for the leave campaign. What is the future of fisheries now that just over half of us voted out of the EU? Could we go it alone or are we heading for a fishy deal?Subscribe to us on iTunes, Audioboom, Mixcloud, Soundcloud and Acast and join the discussion on Facebook, Twitter and emailBritish fishermen, frustrated and angered by fishing quotas, say the EU has hobbled their industry
  
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• UK needs bottle deposit scheme to cut plastic litter in oceans, says thinktank

  04-08-2017 07:30 via theguardian.com
  Green Alliance calls for making retailers take back bottles and cans to significantly reduce plastic pollution in seasPlastic marine litter could be cut significantly if the government adopted a bottle deposit scheme as part of five key actions to tackle pollution of the oceans, a green thinktank has said.The single most effective action to reduce plastic pollution in the seas would be a container return scheme along the lines of those run in large parts of Europe, north America and Australia, a
  
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• An otter pops into the marina for lunch

  04-08-2017 06:30 via theguardian.com
  Plymouth, Devon A busy harbour is not a place you’d expect to find much in the way of wildlife, so that bubble trail in the water is intriguingThis is a place of arrivals and departures, a centuries-old harbour where few stop for long. From hosting the steamships and trans-Atlantic liners of the past to today’s colossal cross-channel ferries, Plymouth’s historic Millbay dock has served the comings and goings of countless travellers.On work lunch breaks I regularly walk beside t
  
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• Device could make washing machines lighter and greener

  04-08-2017 03:07 via bbc.co.uk
  Most washing machines come with 25kg of concrete - but researchers claim there's a simple alternative.
  
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